FREEDOMWORKS 10/24/2017 GOP TAX PLAN IS REAL! MIDDLE CLASS GETS LARGEST CUTS CONTRARY TO WHAT DEMOCRATS SAY!

1. GOP Tax Plan: Middle Class Gets Largest Cuts - via Cato Institute

Critics are saying that the Republican tax plan would give high earners the largest cuts. There has been a flood of news stories with that theme since the Tax Policy Center (TPC) released its analysis of the plan.

However, my parsing of TPC’s data reveals something different: the GOP plan would give the largest relative cuts to people in the middle. On average, middle-income earners would receive larger percentage tax cuts than higher-income earners. Read more here...

2. The Weekly Fix: How Democrats and Their Families Get Richer - by Adam Brandon

The fix is in. The 2018 midterm elections are quickly approaching, which means congressional Democrats are fundraising like crazy to expand their influence in the House and Senate.

We can predict whose bidding congressional Democrats will do in the next session, based on where their campaign donations are coming from.

For example: In the last fundraising quarter, Democrat Senator Heidi Heitkamp received only 3 percent (or $21,318) of campaign funds from inside her home state of North Dakota. According to the Washington Free Beacon, employees of Goldman Sachs donated almost twice as much as North Dakotans. Forty-three percent of Heitkamp’s fundraising last quarter came from New York and California. Read more here...

3. Trump: No Change to 401(k) Retirement Savings Under GOP Tax Plan - via Washington Examiner

President Trump reassured people Monday morning that their 401(k) retirement savings would not be affected by a potential tax reform bill Republicans are hoping to push through Congress, and appeared to rule out one option congressional Republicans were thought to be mulling to pay for tax reform.

"There will be NO change to your 401(k). This has always been a great and popular middle-class tax break that works, and it stays!" Trump tweeted Mondaymorning. Read more here...

4. Time to Eliminate Hidden Taxpayer Support of Union Activities - via Competitive Enterprise Institute

Tax dollars should exclusively support the public’s business. But a Mackinac Center for Public Policy open records request show this is not the case in Michigan. According to the Michigan Civil Service Commission’s response to the records request, “Michigan is paying 20 state employees annual salaries totaling more than $1.2 million to do union work on a full-time basis.”

Worse, this wasteful practice is not limited to state employees. Another $3 million of taxpayer dollars are frittered away by Michigan school districts, by allowing about 100 employees to conduct union business while being paid by taxpayers. Read more here...

5. California's Six-Figure Pension Club Has 62,000 Members - via Reason

Two retired Los Angeles city employees—Earl Paysinger, a former deputy police chief, and Emile Mack, a former assistant fire chief—pulled down more than $1.4 million apiece in pension benefits last year, giving them the largest nest eggs across all California's public retirement systems.

Last week Transparent California released data showing that more than 62,000 retired California public workers earn at least six figures in annual retirement benefits. Paysinger and Mack are two of the seven members of the exclusive million-dollar pension club. All seven retired from the Los Angeles police or fire departments. Read more here...

Jason Pye
Vice President of Legislative Affairs, FreedomWorks